dark.

One woman described her fears of "an indistinct living something,
black, possibly curly," which she feared would enter the room in the
darkness from somewhere under the bed. Another could see dark
objects with eyes and teeth slowly and noiselessly descending from
the ceiling toward her. One little boy, when he had finally overcome
fear, said to his father that he thought the dark to be "a large
live thing the color of black." A girl of nineteen said she
remembered that on going to bed she used to see little black figures
jumping about between the ceiling and the bed.

It is well known that the feeling of fear is often very intense
among children; and where it is due to ignorance it is not right to
laugh it away. Doing so affords no explanation. The ridicule may
cause the child to _hide_ his fear, but will not drive the
feeling away. Since the feeling of fear is so closely connected with
the strange and unknown, the only way that it may be directly
overcome is by making the child familiar with the objects that cause
such feelings.

In the case of young children with whom we cannot reason it is best,
wherever possible, to remove the cause or gradually to make the
child familiar with the darkness, or whatever it is that makes him
unhappy. One very young child became frightened when he was
presented with a Teddy bear. Every time the Teddy bear was produced
he would cry with terror. The mother was perplexed about what to do.
Now, as the Teddy bear is not a necessary part of the child's
surroundings, there is no reason why it cannot be removed altogether
and produced again upon some future occasion, when the child is old